The Man Who Knew Infinity is a lush, romantic biopic in the tradition of Hollywood's grand biographical melodramas of yesteryear. It is broadly accurate, if rather sentimental, but also somewhat superficial. We're constantly told that Ramanujan's work is important and ground- breaking, yet the screenplay mostly fails to demonstrate why this is so. We're shown how difficult life is for a vegetarian in England during the Great War, yet, oddly, it's never explicitly stated that the resulting vitamin deficiencies contributed directly to Ramanujan's demise. But for me the biggest flaw is the misplaced romance between Ramanujan and his wife, Janaki, when the more compelling romance is the intellectual one that unfolds between Ramanujan and G.H. Hardy. In reality, Janaki was nine or ten when Ramanujan married her in 1909, and only 14 or 15 when he left India for England. She was certainly not the ripe beauty portrayed in the film, and there is no real evidence that their arranged marriage was any kind of grand passion. The film is also strangely coy in avoiding any direct reference to Hardy's homosexuality. Perhaps the writer was being scrupulous about not implying any sexual aspect to the relationship with Ramanujan. Whatever the reason, it's an omission that makes Hardy less dimensional and airbrushes his sexuality from history as completely as a 1950s Hollywood biopic might have done. That aside, Jeremy Irons gives what might well be the best performance of his career as Hardy. It's a compelling and deeply touching portrayal. More surprisingly, Dev Patel - after a series of exuberant but lightweight performances - finally proves to be an actor with some depth and range. The film is also deftly directed, with some gorgeous cinematography.
